Be Sure to Put out the Right Amount of Fertilizer to the Lawn...

I was a little concerned when a person call the office and asked about how much fertilizer, particularly nitrogen, to apply to his lawn. He was told that a fifty pound bag of Urea (46-0-0) would cover 5000 square feet of lawn area! NO, that's way to much!

At any given time, you should never apply more than 1 pound of actual nitrogen per 1000 square feet of lawn area. Here is how you figure that; divide 1 by the percentage of nitrogen listed on the fertilizer bag, example; say you are using 46-0-0 as stated above, divide 1 by .46 and you should get 2.17 pounds, round off to 2 per 1000 square feet of lawn area. That 50 pound bag of 46-0-0 should cover 25,000 square feet of lawn!

Using 15-5-10, divide 1 by .15 and you will get 6.66 pounds, or 6.5 pounds per 1000 square feet of lawn area. Applying to much nitrogen to our lawns can promote disease problems and with centipede lawns, actually kill it, centipede actually does not like a lot of nitrogen fertilizer. If you have a centipede lawn, fertilize it at the most twice per year, spring and fall.